Chants From The Graveside by Rich Mills

There is some old saying about 'idle hands' and doing the Devils work, or some such thing. The assumption then could be that 'idle words' spoken must be those of the Devil also. If in no more a way than an un-reasoned babble is nothing but a distracting noise. A siren song designed to send us off course. Inane babble is most of what assails our ears, we have become buried under a mountain of constant background noise pressing down on us from all sides. We block it as best we can, but it still wears you down. While at the same time quelling any chance of losing oneself in divine silence. We maybe able to take strong thread and sew ones mouth shut, to stop us imposing our babble on others. And we can bung our ears to stop the shit of others leaking through. However no thread, no matter how strong, can silence the noise inside our minds. And even harder still to silence is that of the will, that propels us forward.

We all live with noise everyday, especially in the urban landscape there is no escape from the incessant racket. The by-product and many times the sole reason of technology is the making of more noise. There is a secret war being waged on against silence, as it is seen as an ally to loneliness, and an enemy therefore of society.

Radio transmissions penetrate through the ear-drum, deep into the mind, pricking at the will. (Usually to dance!) Whether floated on an ether ocean, or pumped down fibrous cables, the constant drone of adverts spliced into every pause of the broadcast have but one soul destroying aim. To stir the will so that it may never be silent, and thus only find rest in death. When we can switch off from the noise, when our batteries run-out, when our chips are fried. However it may not all end there, as the ironic thing is that maybe the sound of Nirvana is that thing that brings the greatest pain of all.

The words appeared on the screen as Roy spoke into his phone. The phone recorded his voice, translate it into text, then sent both a textual and vocal digitised file to his computer at home. The translated text would be flashing up on his screen at this very moment. It wasn't the best technology that was on offer, but it suited his needs more than adequately. He paused and looked up for a minute, taking stock of his surroundings and so grounding himself for a moment. Soaking in the atmosphere of the sun splashed graveyard that he'd casually wondered into. He carried on with his monologue.

"Here we are now! Entertain us." A self indulgent dramatic pause and a glance around. The row upon row of degraded standing stones bore out the silence of their long gone and decayed owners. He spoke again, "Stone faces bear down from the marble and granite forest of remembrance." Interference rattled him as the deep grunt of a diesel engine tore through his train of thought. Glancing casually upwards he saw two corporation grounds keepers busying themselves in the early morning light. One, his large frame crammed into the tight space of a small excavator, scooping the earth out for a new grave. The other man stood by, propped up by his shovel, all shiny and glistening with dew in the chilled morning air. With sporadic grunting gestures he guided the movements of the mechanical claw as it delved deep into the small pocket it had created in the sodden clay that lay under the fine clipped grass. The two men remain focused on their work as Roy passed by mumbling into his phone,

"I'm fucking invisible!" He whispered half hoping the men would hear. He glanced across at the two men, neither raised his eyes from the hole. They just stared into the sucking darkness. All eyes focused on the hole. Not one pair of down cast eyes from the many stone angels balanced high on their pedestals flickered at the ritual spectacle being performed before them. They'd seen it many times before. They gaze longingly at some indefinable point off in the distance somewhere. This scene was so common to them, they no longer noticed it happening right under their noses. They've seen loads of holes come and go, this one was no more special than any of the others that had been made here or anywhere else before. Worst of all, that all future holes of this nature would be the same as those previous. Really no anticipation going on here, this was the dull end of death. "Note to myself," Roy continued.

Collage courtesy of Rich.

Chants From The Graveside (contd) by Rich Mills

Back at home on the harsh white light of the computer screen, little black characters flashed up on the screen as if typed by invisible hands.

Note: 1-10-273/7974

To: Roy

When I die I want an animatronics gravestone. I can't choose between whether to go for the subtle stone angel like these here in the graveyard, which would simply glance up at a passer-by, and wink or something while giving a knowing smile. Or I could go for the more over-the-top, out-of-place, in-your-face version. 'Beavis and Butthead' sat on their couch, The remote control in Butthead's hand, which is pointing out towards an imaginary T.V. screen seemingly positioned on the path where people would walk passed. So then as people walked by and set off the sensors hidden in the path in front of the grave, the voices of 'Beavis and Butthead' would scream out across the graveyard and the person passing by would turn and look, and see, the remote control pointing right at them. Directly at their chest it would point. Then they'd hear Butthead say to Beavis, "This dude suck's! Let's turn 'um off..." You'd then here chanting from Beavis drifting over the graveyard.

"Off... Off... Off...Yeah! Yeah! This dude's already on stand-by… Pull the plug Butt-ched!

"Yeah! This dude is off alright… He stinks…!"

"Yeah! Yeah!! YEAH!!!" Beavis gets over excited.

"The dude's pure 100% processed cheese," Butthead drawls over the squeals of an over ripe Beavis.

"... Let's go outside and break stuff," Butthead continues. To which Beavis is then heard to reply.

"Yeah! Break stuff! Let's break that dude."

"No! Beavis you bung-hole, we can't break the dude, the dude ain't real ass-wipe! The dude's inside the T.V."

"Let's break the T.V." Beavis has the final words, as all they then hear is a 'click!', and nothing then but silence. Just the sound of the graveyard amplified through the speakers in the grave stone, bass speakers behind huge towering slabs of black granite, tweeter's up in all the trees, playing the graveyard back to itself in full on Para-Digital Multi-Dimensional Micro-Acoustic Transmission Loop or whatever's the best techno-geek sound system out at the time. Nothing but the graveyard playing a perpetual reverberation back in on itself. I'll have to think about that some more.

"Back to diary," He looked about himself, twisted his head and clicked a vertebra in his neck. Re-familiarising himself with his surroundings, he carried on walking. Why he wondered did the stone angels never look up to the heavens, why must they spend all their time staring at the ground like naughty children. Or was Hell more appealing viewing than Heaven? What was it that they had done that was so wrong that their shame forced them to never look up and see what was around them he wondered. Whispering into the phone Roy continued, "Look at me you bastards, I may not be famous, I may not be anybody in particular, but I have substance... Flesh and bone if nothing else. No! Fuck you! All that matters to me is that I have a mind, that I can process a thought. Really at the end of the day it doesn't count whether you can see me or not, whether I just float past you as little more than an ethereal presence." A slight pause, "Well bollocks to you all...! It's your loss. Anyway when anyone does happen to give me a momentary glance they don't even see me, they just see what surrounds me. They see only the surface from which the light reflects, and they can see no deeper than that."

In the distance the railway barriers lifted, he'd not even notice them drop. The world started its engines and roared off in all directions. Roy put his phone away and carried on walking, trying to catch-up with himself and everyone else on this heretic morning.

"Non omnis moriar," one last whispered note before closure.

©  Rich Mills - 2003

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